XIRCOM RealPort CardBus Ethernet 10/100 network card - Sweet
Written: Jun 10 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Simple to install, no dongle
Cons: Trouble with Toshiba laptops
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| eGnome's Full Review: Intel Xircom Ethernet 10/100 + Modem 56 Network / ... |
Being a technical person I don't get too frustrated when hardware or software installation is a little complex, but I must say that I really do appreciate it when a manufacturer does everything right. I recently got the XIRCOM RealPort CardBus Ethernet 10/100 Network Card for a Sony Laptop and it was an absolute pleasure installing and using it. I had the card installed and was connected to the network in a matter of minutes. In my usual style for epinions I will detail what I see as the pros and cons of this network card.
Pros
Installation
The card is incredibly simple to install. I only had to read a couple of short paragraphs on the quick install card (for Windows 98) and I was ready to go. I dual-boot my laptop with Windows 98 and RedHat Linux so I was happy to find out that Linux recognized the card and I didn't have to do anything special to get it to work. I installed Linux on the laptop after I already had the card inserted in the slot, but for Windows 98 I installed it after I already had the OS installed. As soon as I plugged it into the PCMCIA slot Win98 auto detected it and prompted me for the included CD. Popped that in and in 20 seconds it was done!!
Design
The design of the card is something that XIRCOM seems to take pride in and uses as a marketing tool. Their motto is "Nothing to break. Nothing to lose." It is quite a nice design. Very simple, clean and solid. It looks as if you could drop it on the floor and it wouldn't break. I imagine their motto refers to the fact that no "dongle" is required to use the card (A dongle is simply an adapter that converts one type of connection to another). The fact that the card takes up two type II stacked PCMCIA slots allows it to accommodate an RJ-45 modular jack rather than needing a dongle like is used in a single card slot design.
The box the card came is was also an interesting design. It had one of those perforated pull strips to open it sort of like you find on frozen boxed peas. It seemed like an odd choice of packaging for a piece of electronics, but I imagine it had some purpose such as evidence if the box had been previously opened. Not terribly important, but it just caught my attention so I thought I would mention it.
Compatibility
XIRCOM advertises that the card works on Windows 95, 98, NT, and 2000, and although they don't indicate it on the box, it works like a charm on Linux. The standard RedHat 6.1 installation package that I used had no problem detecting and using the XIRCOM card. The documentation also indicates that it supports networking for Novell NetWare, Windows 3.x, NDIS and ODI drivers.
Support
XIRCOM offers free technical support, but obviously I didn't have to use it so I can't really comment on its quality.
Cons
Installation
I installed two of these cards in two identical laptops. The first laptop recognized it when I plugged it in (in Windows 98), but the second one did not. The only difference was that the laptop that didn't recognize it was running on battery power and the other was running on AC power. I don't know if this is a feature of Windows 98 to conserve battery power, but once I put the other laptop on AC power it recognized the card when I put it in. This isn't really a negative of the card, but I thought that it was interesting to note.
Design
One of the benefits of this card (the fact that it doesn't require a dongle) is also a negative because it means that it requires two stacked type II PCMCIA slots or one type III slot. This can be a problem if you need a slot for something else. At the moment I don't need the second slot for anything so it's not a problem.
Although I didn't personally have a problem, a coworker said that they ran into a problem trying to install this card in a Toshiba laptop. The problem was that the front edge of the card was just a little too big to fit into the PCMCIA slot on the Toshiba. It would slide in almost all the way, but the red piece of plastic on the front edge just wouldn't fit into the slot. It really surprised me that this happened, but maybe the particular card they had was manufactured incorrectly causing it to not fit in the Toshiba laptop. The documentation does claim that the card will work with Toshiba laptops. (Sorry, but I don't know what model of Toshiba laptop had the problem).
Packaging
Environmentally speaking the packaging was a bit of an overkill, but I do realize that they have to make the boxes bigger than the actual contents to thwart would-be shoplifters. Also they like to have enough surface area on the box to put all the gee-whiz marketing fluff.
The package I got only came with the driver software on CD-ROM, but the box indicates that you can get it on floppys. This probably isn't much of a problem because most laptops that you'd use this card with would more than likely have a CD-ROM drive.
Functionality
On Linux, after I first installed the card, I occasionally lost my connection to the network. I thought I might have a bad card, but after reinsertion of the card all problems disappeared and I haven't seen the problem since. The problem did not occur when I booted in Windows 98. I figure I just didn't have the card seated firmly in the slot and it was a fluke that Windows didn't lose the connection and Linux did. I've rebooted in both Operating Systems multiple times since I reseated the card and have had no more problems.
Overall
I'm really happy with the XIRCOM RealPort CardBus network card. The only reason I wouldn't recommend this card to someone would be if they needed their other PCMCIA slot for some other peripheral. Also if you have a Toshiba laptop you might want to make sure you can return the card in case it doesn't fit in the slot.
Features
For completeness I'll list the features of this card. If you're not interested in the specs then you can stop reading now because the following comes straight off the outside of the box.
- An integrated 10/100 Ethernet LAN connector
- Uses standard RJ-45 Ethernet cable
- Delivers 100Mbps performance via 32-bit CardBus slot
- Auto-negotiate 10/100Mbps network speed
- BatterySave advanced power management increases battery life
- Supports MAGIC PACKET WAKE-UP, Wake-on-LAN, and ACPI
- Full-duplex operation and Advanced Look-Ahead Pipelining capability increases Ethernet throughput
- LAN LEDs
- SNMP-manageable
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
eGnome
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Location: Red Bank, NJ
Reviews written: 51
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